I Can’t Taste This: A Continuing Series on Aging

Page 8 Oh My Gut!

I was reading an article about the elderly in nursing homes. One of their chief complaints is the taste of the food. The chef and the people in charge couldn’t quite understand what the problem was because to them the food tasted fine. Further investigation reveals that as we age we lose our sense of taste and smell. Most people know that a loss of smell will contribute to a loss of taste but perhaps what you may not know is that this loss is but another casualty of aging.

I thought this quite interesting as I had never considered the loss of smell and taste to occur as we age. I don’t know why I never did, they are senses just as sight and hearing are and I have been gradually experiencing their loss for ten years now.

But here’s the irony; as you age you can’t taste your food as well, so salty, sweet, spicy, sour, they are all less intense. But dagnabbit if you were to consume them in amounts enough to taste them you would suffer many of the ailments that come from overindulging, especially in older adults.

My digestive system already has let me know in no uncertain terms that eating spicy, salty, or rich foods in days of succession will cause me to suffer.

This past weekend I treated myself to a few pieces of a small cheese pizza while out of town. Upon my return I have limited my diet to things like chicken and rice. It would be sad except I genuinely like chicken and rice.

In January my doctor gave me papers to get blood work done. I am to be tested for cholesterol and diabetes among other things. I conveniently keep forgetting to go up the hill to the lab one morning before I eat breakfast, that’s all I have to do. But then what? No more chocolate? No more hot wings? I suppose that time is coming anyway I might as well get on with it and look for some recipes for low salt chicken and rice with a dollop of bland on the side.

Spicy Crabs (c)

Posted in part in response to the challenge: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/08/12/writing-challenge-health/

For other posts in this category see the menu above or click the links below

Page One; A Wrinkle in time


Page Two; Life in the Mirror


Page Three; Fashionably Late

Page Four; Aches, Aging and AARP.

Page Five; To Tweet or not to Tweet; that is the Question

Page Six; It’s not Worth the Spike in My Blood Pressure

Page 7: Life Goes By Too Fast

Page 8: I Can’t Taste This

24 thoughts on “I Can’t Taste This: A Continuing Series on Aging”

  1. Get up that hill to the lab, the sooner you establish whether or not you are diabetic, the sooner you can be advised on an appropriate diet or medication if needs be. The complications of diabetes are not worth risking by delaying…..(I speak as a retired healthcare professional). All the best

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  2. Getting older can be stink-a-roony but we do need to take care of ourselves and hope that some good genes do the rest. My mom will be 91 this year. She watches EVERYTHING she eats, to the point of making me crazy. But, on the positive side, she has just recently started loosing her hearing (also to the point of my distraction, but it can’t be good for her either!) And she’s a skinny Minnie because she measures out handfuls of this and only one of that. I recently joined Weight watchers (April) and have lost 18 lbs so far. Yes I DO need someone to be accountable to, so I DO go to the meetings every Thursday, but I feel better. I’ll be 62 this year. I wish I had started sooner. Is it tough? Yes. But I do want to get even older – even if it means loosing my hearing! (My husband probably wishes he could loose his!!!)
    I am official off my soap box!
    😉

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  3. A very good friend of mine is the Executive Chef at a ritzy elderly home. He gets complaints daily about too much salt, too little salt, no taste, too spicy, not enough spice and some of them eat all of their food liquified……I struggle too but I keep on trying and working out helps me loads.

    Walk up that hill!

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  4. I have watched my mother lose these abilities. She can still hear, but she either can’t – or can’t very well – walk, speak, swallow, taste, see, type (on computer, pad, or phone) or write. I have often wondered what I would be like when abilities start to get stripped away. What will my character show?

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  5. A lot of how you age is how lucky you were with the parents you inherited. But a lot is also helped by medical science and modern technology. My Dad died at 54 with a heart attack before they monitored cholesterol etc.. I had a heart attack at 64 but modern medicine saved me. My mother lived in her own house looking after herself, to be 96. I’m hoping I have inherited some of her genes too.

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